


lighter than a feather

by The Master of the Deck (officiumdefunctorum)



Series: on wednesdays we whump [7]
Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Despair, Gen, Mental Instability, Post AMoL, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rand Feels, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, We Die Like Men, Whump, unbeta’d
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24344410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officiumdefunctorum/pseuds/The%20Master%20of%20the%20Deck
Summary: "Death is lighter than a feather."(takes place after"ruin")
Relationships: Nynaeve al'Meara/Lan Mandragoran
Series: on wednesdays we whump [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661389
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	lighter than a feather

**Author's Note:**

> heed the tags. this work deals heavily with Rand's thoughts during an extreme low point post canon. he is _not okay_. please do not read this if suicidal ideation is a trigger for you <3
> 
> \--
> 
> (Created as part of the "On Wednesdays We Whump" for WoT Trash discord. Invite at the end!)

The days kept passing.

That was... that was just it. Days passed, and Rand al’Thor did not feel as if they had passed at all.

_I am trapped in a box, again._

After the interminable cycle of days, and days, and days and nights and dawn and dusk and moons growing fat and shrinking again, Rand could not tell what was fear, and what was memory.

Everything just hurt so _much_.

The sound of voices, when he knew they were real, reminded him that there were people—real people—that he had hurt, killed, murdered. People he had lost, relationships destroyed, so many _mistakes_.

He thought about the people that he loved, that he missed, that needed him. But that was wrong. They _didn’t_ need him. They did not need Rand al’Thor; nobody had needed Rand al’Thor since the sheep had been slaughtered on Winternight. Rand had been gone, dead, for months.

The Dragon Reborn had served his purpose. In the end, even his lovers did not need him. He had been their sacrifice, had given up all he was, all he had ever dreamed or wanted, to give humanity a chance at life and choice.

 _You could take it back_ , he thought with a kind of horrified detachment.

The saa in his eye drifted, tiny, nearly unnoticeable.

_You could take it all away._

The power inside of him was terrifying, more terrifying than saidin had ever been. What he could do. What he had _become_.

In the secluded, newly overgrown corner of Nynaeve’s garden, Rand gripped his thighs where he knelt in meditation, trying, trying so hard to order his thoughts. Trying to be _himself_.

But it hurt to be himself. When would he be free of this pain?

The sun set. Rose again. Days passed.

“Rand, please eat something.”

With a thought, the food became flowers. The flowers wilted, rootless, and drifted away.

A crescent moon waxed—

“Please, Rand. Please. You’re so thin.”

—and waned.

When had the sun gone away? When had all gone dark?

“You know, if you had wanted to grow some trees, I could have used a sturdy oak or three out by the Queen’s Lake.”

Sleep again. The box. Moridin sitting beside the game board, pieces awry. _I want it to end._

There are no endings.

Fear. Pain. Grief.

The prophecies ended when the Dragon Reborn died.

_I burned, and I am alive._

The words felt like defeat.

Screaming. Shouts. Channeling. _Can I still feel that?_

“Light, _Light_. Lan, he’s—oh, he’s alright. Oh, thank the Light, he’s okay. _No_ —no more of that. I’ll not wait any more. If you don’t bring him inside, I’ll do it myself. look at what he did! The grove is _ash_ , now. I won’t see—I can’t do that again, do you hear? I won’t do it Lan Mandragoran!”

Were his eyes open?

Smoke. Burning wood. Burning words.

_have I not carried the mountain_

“I don’t know what to do.”

Light. Then dark. Light again. Dark again. The wheel turned.

And turned.

_I am alive._

_can I not let go the feather_

“After everything, Rand al’Thor, after all you have done, after all you saved, I will not let you do this. You are still here, you are _still here_. You are—you are not done, do you hear me? You already gave one life. It wasn’t taken from you, you _gave_ it. You’re still here. This one, you don’t get to give away. It’s yours, burn it. It’s _yours_. Don’t you dare let go when you have not had the chance to live.”

Steady light, saidar.

“I’m so tired,” said Rand. When had he last spoken?

“That’s okay,” said Nynaeve, tears in her voice. They sounded happy. Or perhaps sad. “Sleep, Rand. You can sleep. I won’t leave you alone.”

He wished he were numb to the pain inside him. The confusion. The loss. _Oh_ , how his insides hurt.

“Can I release it, yet?” He asked, voice weary, and sad, and so, so small.

“Release what?” Asked Nynaeve, though by the sob in her voice, he could tell that she already knew the answer.

In his hand, with fingers too thin, and palm unmarred by calluses or scars, he held something.

_I am alive._

Nynaeve began to cry.

It had always been there.

Always in his grasp. Always.

* * *

“Lan Mandragoran, this is your fault. You—you stupid man, you put this in his head, and now it is going to take him from me again. I can’t _do_ it, do you hear me? I can’t live through it a second time. Not when I’m right here, not when I have to watch him waste away, with nothing to do to stop it! My weaves just... melt away. I can’t help him.”

“I—I am sorry, Nynaeve. I would take back my words, if I could, if I had known what harm they would do.”

The sun rose. Different from the light of saidar.

_I am alive._

Beside him, Nynaeve wept.

In his hand, Rand held a feather.

* * *

“Nynaeve,” said Rand, sometime later. He sat near a window. Outside, birds chirped, and insects hummed.

Malkier breathed. Malkier lived. Fifty years blighted, now healing.

“Yes, Rand?” She asked, calm once more, though she had not left him. The smell of smoke still drifted in from the open window.

_Will I ever escape ash, and ruin?_

“I’m tired,” he said, knowing he’d said it before.

“I know,” said Nynaeve, her voice small. Her voice shouldn’t be small, not like his.

The feather he held was gray. Downy, and fragile.

“I want to be done,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “Everything hurts, and I want it to stop.”

“I know,” she said again, a shake in the sound. “If I could make it stop, I would. Stay with me, and I will help you. I will, Rand, my sweet boy, I will.”

_I am alive, but death is lighter than a feather._

Rand tipped his hand.

In an instant, he could do it. It would be true.

A strong, callused hand gripped his, palm to palm, trapping the feather between them. Rand did not look up.

_Still, I am not yet done._

“Please,” said Rand, barely audible in the close silence of the room. “Have I not done my duty?”

Behind Lan, Nynaeve stifled a sob.

“You have,” said Lan. “But I was wrong,” he continued, squeezing his hand and Rand’s, the feather between. “And I must beg your forgiveness, because I did not see it, before. It was _my_ folly. Death is not something to be held. It does not weigh. It is a burden of no mountain or feather or any other measurement. My boy, my _friend_ , you have carried your mountain. You did your duty and did it well, but this, _this_ ,” he said, shaking their joined hands. “This fragile thing you hold is not death. It is _life_.”

“It _hurts_ ,” said Rand, all of him fear, and pain, and so much grief.

He looked up at Lan, to the man who had believed in him before anyone else. The man he had tried so hard to be like, and failed at every turn.

“We both know, Rand al’Thor,” said Lan Mandragoran, his tired eyes full of compassion. “That pain reminds us we still live.”

Lip trembling, Rand looked at his hand, feeling the feather within. Knowing the choice he could make. All he had to do was _believe_.

Tears leaked from his eyes, and he closed them.

As if it had never been, the feather was gone. Only Lan’s palm now touched his own.

In the arms of a king, and the care of a queen, Rand breathed. Rand _lived_.

“I am alive,” he said, and the words did not feel like defeat.

_I am alive._

**Author's Note:**

> So, I straight up lay the blame for the awful way that Rand deals with his emotions during canon at Lan's feet. During the most critical time in Rand's life, when he is in a crisis of identity on multiple fronts, who is the one there that teaches him the sword? Who puts those words in his mind, "death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain"? Lan does. I'm not saying that Lan didn't help Rand, in his way, but come on--the man himself is the Edgemaster who's grand life plan was to die in a one man war. _That_ was Rand's role model. It's so painful to watch him try to be like Lan, to see it from the inside. Ultimately, it leaves Rand in the same place that it brought Lan.
> 
> Want to talk about it? Join the [Wheel of Time Trash discord](https://discord.gg/XUvCR2z) for shipping, fic, prompts, headcanons, smut, kinks, and general flailing about this stupid series that we all love for some reason.


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